Monkey Wrench Gang coming to big screen

The Monkey Wrench Gang is becoming a movie, more than 30 years after author Edward Abbey published the best-selling novel. Filming of the story, which stars a ragtag group of environmentalists that turn into eco saboteurs to protect the wilderness of the Utah canyon country, will begin in May. Shooting will take place in New Mexico, not Utah, though, because, according to director Catherine Hardwicke, the Land of Enchantment is cheaper.
It will be a small budget film, according the Utah's Deseret News, but the novel's cult-like following may attract such big names as Robert Redford.

Will the story be as relevant as it was in 1975? Hard to say... the main object of the characters' hatred was the Glen Canyon Dam. No big dams have been built in the West since. Many think the era of big federal dams is over. On top of that, 9/11 heightened national paranoia, so the story's saboteurs may now be branded as "ecoterrorists."

Even so, the director said she thought it would be a hit.

"After 'Inconvenient Truth,' we hit a tipping point where almost everybody in America cares about the environment," Hardwicke told the Deseret News of Al Gore's 2006 Sundance hit about the dangers of global warming. "We feel like (Monkey Wrench) is going to be a rallying cry to shake people up to care about the land, the world and do something about this planet."

Image by R. Crumb